Conventionally user terminals were simple devices that provided a communication interface to access services of a communication network applying the same interface. For example, early mobile phones comprised one radio unit that supported one cellular technology within a coverage area of a plurality of interconnected networks applying that same cellular technology. Along the evolving technologies, the needs of the users have increased and especially high-end multimedia cellular terminals typically comprise two or more communication interfaces that may be used simultaneously or in turns.
In cellular mobile communications terminals the straightforward conceptual way of having many independent radio access methods in a single terminal is to have all the radios potentially active simultaneously and then use one or several of those simultaneously but independently of each other. This straightforward concept, however, suffers from some disadvantages.
First, several simultaneously active radios may cause mutual radio interference, if their radio frequency bands are not separate enough. Simultaneous operation may also pose challenges to implementation of the radios and antennas. Secondly, having several radios active simultaneously causes easily high power consumption, which is not acceptable in a mobile terminal. A cellular radio with efficient energy economy ‘sleep’ mode is generally designed to have very small stand-by power consumption and thus enable long battery life, and still be able to receive calls whenever paged. In present wideband radios, for example Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN) radios, there is no efficient ‘sleep’ mode defined in the standard. This means that a terminal, which has to be continuously alert to receive signals at any time, may during wideband operation have big power consumption, even when it is in a stand-by mode.
Increased power consumption in multi-radio terminals, especially hand-held terminals, is a big challenge and typically it mandates the schemes that define the way the radios of the mobile terminal are used. The multi-radio use schemes are typically user terminal specific, and made on the basis of the design aspects (battery life, interference of radios) of the terminal device.
However, a modern user terminal comprises several voice and data user applications that are introduced to the generic user terminal by the user or the organization that provides the user with the terminal. Such applications are not designed interactively and apply the interfaces of the user terminal according to their own application schemes.
In addition, there are typically a plurality of user-specific operational requirements that in most cases cannot be taken into account in the terminal or application design. Such operational requirements may be permanent or even change dynamically depending on whether, for example, the user is in office, in a meeting, on leisure or at home, or whether an officer is during his work hours on duty or off duty. Conventional user profiles applied in user terminals comprise configuration data on the user and his capabilities and preferences in using the applications. Such profiles do not, however, comprise definitions for utilization of communication interfaces of the user terminal by these applications.
Matching the ambiguous communications interface application schemes, and personal operational requirements or wishes requires knowledge, time and effort that most users are, however, not willing to vest in using their communication devices.